The End of the World Running Club (15 page)

Another shot rang out behind us as we both hit the tracks and started picking up the pace. I followed the dark outline of Bryce as we neared the tunnel, his rifle slung over his shoulder, his long coat flapping behind him like a tent. Not for the first time I marvelled at his speed.

Our pursuers had hit the slope and slowed down as they picked their way gingerly down it. A few wild shots flew harmlessly above us and we made up some distance. I caught up with Bryce as we hit the tunnel. The sound of our feet slamming against the ground closed in around us like the darkness. There was no light. Bryce flicked on his head torch and I followed the beam as it swept around the crumbling brick, catching the shadows of rats scurrying into the walls.  We reached the first bend where the train wreck was lodged and I heard footsteps on the track behind us; voices close by and rattling off the walls.

Now it was just a matter of speed.

We knew the geography of the train well: the blockages, the angle of each carriage, the width of each door and how it led to the next, the position of each blackened husk sitting in its seat. There had been only a few passengers that early on a Sunday morning. The train would have stopped in the tunnel as the warnings came, an apology from the driver over the tannoy, a few tuts and papers shaken, then the very faintest sound of the sirens, not enough time to panic before the first one hit, flooding the tunnel with liquid fire.

I followed Bryce's route through the train and out into blackness. We lost our pursuers for a moment, but as we saw the dim light of the tunnel's exit at Haymarket we heard them gaining on us once again. They were quick.

A shot rang out and another bullet flew past my head, a little too close for comfort this time. I pushed down my head and lengthened my stride, putting some faith in my feet. I could feel them now closing in now. They were no longer shouting, just running; using all of their energy to catch us.

Bryce reached the end of the tunnel and immediately launched his huge bulk onto the platform on the left. He hit the stone wall with his chest, with his arms scrabbling on the concrete and his legs kicking the thin air beneath. His buttocks heaved in great circles as he struggled like a water buffalo in a rising river, unable to pull himself up.
 

“What are you doing?” I shouted as I reached the end of the tunnel. “Keep running!”

“Get me up! Get me up!”

“They’re almost on us!”

“Just get me fucking up!”

I stumbled on the gravel as I ran into the grey light and heaved Bryce’s legs onto the platform. He grabbed my arm and hauled me effortlessly alongside him. I followed as he sprinted up the remains of a metal staircase. At the top, Bryce crouched and swung his rifle round. I fell down behind him, wheezing, gasping.

“Bryce,” I spluttered. “What the hell are you doing? Let’s keep moving!”

Echoes of footsteps clattered off the walls of the tunnel, louder and louder.

“I’m buying us some time,” said Bryce calmly. His own breathing had already slowed and I could tell his heart rate was doing the same. Mine was still hammering, trying to escape from my ribcage.
 

Bryce was a freak. From what I knew of him, his life before the strike had had a single purpose: pleasure. Food, drink, drugs and sex. He had never lifted a weight, never cycled a bike, would have hurled you across a room if you had suggested that he take a jog. You would never have seen a man with a build like his on a track, but Bryce could run five miles flat out without breaking a sweat. Against all evidence to the contrary, he was a natural runner with the heart of an Olympian. I could never keep up with him.

“There are at least seven of them, you idiot!” I said, trying to pull back his shoulder. “Come on!”

“They’re pussies,” said Bryce, shrugging me off and adjusting his sight. “A couple of shots and they’ll run home to Mummy.”

“No no no, Bryce, come on, think. They’ve usually given up by now, but they’re still running. They’re fed and they’re armed and they’re pissed off. They’ll kill us. Now for fuck’s sake let’s keep running, they’re almost on us!”

“Toooo late,” sang Bryce, his finger wrapping itself around the trigger of his rifle.

The front runner hurtled out of the tunnel and skidded to a halt on the tracks. He was tall and lean, with a thick black hooded top pulled down over his gaunt face. He pulled a pistol from his green combat trousers and held it out in both hands, scanning the station. I ducked behind Bryce. Another two arrived from the tunnel and almost tumbled into each other. They were both shorter than the other, but just as skinny, hoods up as well. They were all young, probably still teenagers. The leader held out a hand towards them and they spread out on the tracks, pulling out their guns and looking warily around the station.

“Bryce,” I hissed. “This is not a good idea.”

“It’s a fucking great idea,” he said, and let off a shot.

The bullet hit the wall of the tunnel and a cloud of dust and rock exploded around the three young men. They instinctively fell to the tracks and started scrambling back towards the safety of the tunnel. Bryce fired a couple more rounds and the leader returned fire in our direction before disappearing into the darkness.

I fell back against the rear wall of the steps, my ears ringing from the shots, my heart still pounding from the run and now from the gunfire. Until six months before I had never even seen a gun in real life, let alone one spitting bullets at me.

“Shit,” said Bryce. He checked the indicator on his magazine. “Shit,” he said again, training the gun back onto the exit of the tunnel.

“Great,” I said. “That’s just great, Bryce. Now they know where we are.”

We heard the other four runners catch up and stop before the end of the tunnel. Some muffled voices and shouts came from the darkness.

“You’ve had your fun,” I said. “Now will you
please
stop fucking about and COME ON!”

“You go if you like,” said Bryce. “I’m finishing what I started.”

Suddenly a pistol appeared from the tunnel and shot three times up at the stair. Two bullets flew by above us, but the third ricocheted off the metal girder beneath my leg. I sprang up the stair and huddled into a ball.
 

“Jesus Christ, Bryce! You’re going to get us fucking killed!”

“Run on,” he said. He hadn’t moved a muscle. “I’ll catch you up.”

The pistol appeared again, this time further out into the light. I could see a pale and hollow face looking up at us from the end of the outstretched arm.

This time Bryce fired first, a single shot that slammed straight into the gunner’s shoulder.
 

“Fucking up ya!” shouted Bryce. “Right fucking up ya!”

He let out a deep laugh as shouts and howls echoed from the tunnel.

“Did you hit him?” I said.

“Aye,” said Bryce, still chuckling to himself. “Oh aye.”

He rested his rifle down on the step as if he had just hit a deer on a hunt. He turned to me, grinning. I stared back, not quite believing what had just happened.

Bryce smacked his lips.

“OK,” he said. “Time to go.”

We clattered down the steps and sprinted across the platform onto the opposite tracks. Bryce sped away laughing. I followed with my head swimming, trying to keep pace. We were clear of the station and on our way south-west by the time we heard them following again. Bryce’s stunt had managed to give us a rest, slow one of them up and put an extra few hundred metres between them and us.

After about a mile on the tracks, the runners seemed to be closing in again. We came to the bridge at Slateford and Bryce swung left, climbing the steps onto the main road that crossed the railway.

“Where are you going?” I yelled.

“Canal,” Bryce called back.

As we hit the road, Bryce tripped on the kerb and fell, letting out a great
oof
as he hit the torn, blackened tarmac. He flinched as I helped him up and I noticed a dark patch on the left arm of his coat.

“What’s that?” I said.

Bryce inspected it gingerly.
 

“Must’ve hit me too,” he said. “I’m alright.”

He looked pale, not the same laughing maniac that had sped out of the station.

I peered over the wall at our pursuers, who were almost at the bridge. Further back, I could see the one that Bryce had hit crouching down on the tracks, clutching his shoulder, another one of them stopped next to him. Five now almost on us.

The canal was the quickest way home. It ran parallel to the tracks, but the road that ran towards it was long and wide with no cover. We would be sitting ducks.

Bryce gulped and took a few trembling breaths.

“Come on,” I said. “This way.”

I led us across the main road and up a cobbled side street that had once been lined with Victorian tenements. It was the last in a row of eight similar streets, all of which had blown backwards and were now leaning against each other like gigantic dominoes. Being the last, it had suffered the least. One end of the street had collapsed in a flattened sandwich of charred stone, metal and furniture. Home upon home upon home. The rest of the street still stood upright, a husk of brick with holes where the windows and doors had been. A wind had picked up and was starting to whistle through the empty rooms.

I pulled Bryce into one doorway and around a corner, into the remains of a ground floor flat where we crouched against the wall.

There was silence for a while, just the sounds of our breathing and Bryce’s occasional grunts of pain. I guessed that a family had lived here. The shell of an upright piano stood against one wall. A gust of wind sent a blackened pile of sheet music rustling across the floor beneath it. A black crust of a satchel hung from one corner, thrown there the evening before the strike, one small shoe poking out of it.

Bryce was beginning to bleed heavily now. I glanced back around the corner, crossed to the piano and grabbed the satchel. The strap was still in one piece. I took it off and tied it around the top of Bryce’s arm, above where I guessed the wound to be. He winced a little as I pulled it tight.

“Thanks,” he said.

I held a finger to my lips. I had heard something outside, a bang, something kicked.

“Ho!”

We both froze.

I tapped the magazine in Bryce’s gun.
How many rounds?

Bryce slowly held up a single finger.

I sank slowly down to the ground.

“Ho there ya fucks!”

They sounded like they were two doors down, banging walls, kicking things over. Their voices echoed off the ancient tiles in the stairwell as they clattered up and down, checking the flats. One of them was making sucky kissing noises and whining in a fake, nasal American accent.

“Here kitty kitty...here kitty kitty kitty...”
 

Bryce bristled and fidgeted. He tapped his magazine again and jabbed his thumb back at the door, miming a quick shot to the head. I held my palms down at him and shook my head slowly. Bryce gripped his gun to his chest and glared back at me.

“‘Mon cunts!”

The voices reappeared on the street and then disappeared again into the stair next door. Hoots and shouts and screams like kids trying to scare other kids.

Bryce was sucking long streams of air in and out of his nostrils. He was going to go for them as soon as they found us, if not before. I looked around the flat. We only had one choice.

“Come on,” I said. “Quick. Up.”

I pulled Bryce to his feet and led him through to a living room that was now just a dirty, frozen cave. Amongst the junk and clutter was a long sofa, charred like everything else but still with its cushions intact. I pulled them away and took a knife from my belt. This was my one weapon. I didn’t share Bryce’s need for a gun. I ran it around the fabric underneath and tore it away.

Voices and footsteps were out on the street again. I looked up at Bryce, who frowned.

“Ladies first,” I whispered, directing him to the exposed cavity.

Bryce went to protest, but I could hear them coming into the stair now. I pulled Bryce forwards and bundled him into the sofa. He fought a yelp as he landed heavily on his arm and I jumped in behind him, pulling the cushions on top of us.

I didn’t know if we were fully covered and had no time to check.

“Mon ya cunts,” said a voice quietly as one of them entered the room. I could hear the others running up the stairwell. Bryce’s giant, wet face was pressed up against mine, breathing heavy, hot, stinking breaths across my mouth. I fought to control myself, not to move. I was sure we would be heard.

“...gonnae fuck’n kill ye when ah find ye...”

He was moving slowly around the flat, inspecting the debris. A sudden discordant clang rang out as he kicked the piano. He kicked it three more times in quick succession, laughing wildly in the half-broken voice of an adolescent.

Haw haw haw haw....

 
A death chord rang out on the piano strings. He came into the living room and shuffled around, picking up objects and dropping them or throwing them against the walls. I could smell him. Even through the wet, mouldy fabric of the cushion and Bryce’s stale breath, I could smell him. The smell of sweat, smoke, piss, grease and old wet dust.

Suddenly the cushion pressed hard against my face. I gulped back a cry of protest as my cheek squashed harder against Bryce’s. He was sitting right on top of us.

I heard the metallic chink and scratch of a Zippo. There was a crackle and a long suck, then the smell of marijuana.

Then a loud, deep fart pushed its way through the cushion above us.

He sat there above us, smoking his joint and farting into my face until I thought we would have to take our chances with him, push the cushion up and overpower him before he could call the others down from the stairs. I was edging my hand down towards my knife, ready to make a move, when we heard the others descending the stairs.

“Anyhn?” shouted our boy.

“Nah,” came the reply. “Mon.”

He took one last suck of his joint and then bounced up from the sofa. “Where now?” he said.